Tumblin' Dice (9 page)

Cliff said, “Yeah, what's that for anyway, that commercial, some car?”

“Fucking Korean piece of shit. They mostly used Ritchie's riff.”

Cliff said, “Yeah, it's good, that riff.” Ritchie came up with it right away when Cliff showed him the words, “She walks this red light street/She does what she wants/Nobody owns her/Nobody tells her what to do.” Ritchie'd said, yeah, like Roxanne, and Cliff said yeah. That Ritchie, always clever but never knowing what to do with it.

“So, what do you want to do,” Cliff said, “go over to the office and say, hey, Frank, we figure you owe us two million bucks, hand it over?”

“Something like that.”

Cliff downed the last of his Scotch and saw a woman walking through the bar. She was in her forties, too, carrying a little more weight than the flirty one in the booth, but also showing it off in a tight, low-cut minidress, stockings, stilettos, and attitude, walking through the place like she knew everybody was looking at her and she didn't mind — she liked it. Cliff was thinking it was good to see that kind of confidence in a woman her age with that extra weight, could tell she knew how to use her body better than any skinny twenty-something.

He said to Barry, “You figure he'll just hand it over?”

The woman got to the booth with the flirting couple and sat down, looking around for a waiter.

And Barry was saying, “I don't see why not. The shylocks do.”

Cliff watched the scene at the booth, not as much fun now with the third wheel, hands coming up above the table, tight smiles all 'round, and he said to Barry, “They don't have much choice, you holding a gun on them.”

And Barry said, “I still have the gun.” Cliff looked at him and Barry said, “Have one for you, too.”

“Are you fucking kidding? I told you after that French fucking asshole nearly killed me I'd never do that again.”

“It isn't exactly the same.”

“No?”

Barry finished off his drink, tapped the bar, and said, “I can't believe you can't smoke in here. I'd like a smoke, how about you?”

“You're not serious about this?”

Barry said, why not, it's our money. “You know, you actually handled it pretty good. You didn't panic or yell or anything.”

Cliff said, yeah, right, looking at Barry nodding, acting like he was impressed. Bullshit. Cliff knew he thought he was a pussy, standing there with a gun on the guy, not shooting him, getting smacked and tossed in the fucking trunk of the car. Pussy. Then he said, “It's all I fucking think about.”

Barry said, come on, “Let's step outside,” and Cliff followed him out the side door of the place to the patio that wouldn't be used for anything other than smoke breaks in the summer.

A waiter in his buckskin jacket dropped a butt and went back inside, and they were alone.

Barry said, “You know, most guys, they would've started pulling the trigger right there in the lot, place'd be swarming with cops, everybody busted, some fucking dope dealer shot in the head. The next ten years'd be all lawyers and trials — you don't end up in jail, you still end up broke.”

Cliff said, yeah, that's true, but he hadn't thought about that at all. He just thought about pointing the gun at the asshole and shooting, watching the back of his head splatter all over his fucking piece of shit Monte Carlo like in a movie. What he wanted to do.

Barry lit his cigarette and said, no man, “You're good at it.”

Well, Cliff thought, he was getting better anyway. He lit up, sucking smoke deep into his lungs and letting it out slow, saying, “So, you think Frank has that kind of money, and he can just hand it over?”

“Guy runs a casino: I'm sure he can get his hands on some cash.”

Cliff said, “Shit, Barry, we don't see each other for a few years, and it's like I don't know you anymore. You're a different person.”

Barry smoked, didn't say anything.

Cliff said, “It is our money, though, isn't it? Two million bucks?”

“Probably way more than that,” Barry said. “But if it's just you and me, that sounds about right as our share.”

Cliff said yeah, but was thinking he really should be splitting it with Ritchie, guy wrote all the music and most of the lyrics. It's not like Barry ever had a piece of the publishing.

Then Cliff said, “But does he really run the place?” and Barry said, sure, what do you mean?

“Well, a casino,” Cliff said. “He'd have to be connected.”

“His name's all over it,” Barry said.

“What'd you do, Google him? Maybe he's just the front.”

Cliff watched Barry take a drag and blow smoke out in a long stream, nodding and thinking about it, and now Cliff wasn't sure he wanted him thinking about it so much. Maybe it was better to just do it, like Ritchie always telling him he didn't plan solos, didn't work them out, just closed his eyes and played. Like fucking, Ritchie said, go with the moment.

“Be easy enough to find out,” Barry said. “We're here for two more days.”

The door to the bar opened and a woman came out, Cliff recognizing her as the one who joined the happy couple at the table. She didn't look too happy, putting a cigarette in her mouth and trying to light a match.

Barry looked at Cliff and nodded like they'd agreed on something, like the plans were all made, and went back inside.

Cliff said, “Here,” and flicked his gold Zippo.

The woman leaned forward a little, unsteady on her heels, and held Cliff's hands while she got her smoke lit. Then she stood up straight, leaned her head back, and inhaled deep, blowing smoke at the sky.

Cliff said, “I still can't believe we can't smoke inside,” and she looked at him and said, “Sometimes it's nice to step out, though, take a break.”

Up close like this Cliff figured she was in her late forties, figured she had some kind of special bra under her little dress holding them up like that, but that was okay — she was proud, took care of herself.

He said, “Yeah, that's true.”

She said, “My sister and her husband, they want to be alone anyway.”

“Is your husband here?”

She said, “You're so sneaky, working that in.”

“I thought it was an opening.”

She looked at him, up and down, and Cliff liked her, the way she was confident, some of it being the drinks she'd had, sure, but most of it just her.

He said, “Well?”

She smoked, puckering her red lips and inhaling, letting it out slow. “I haven't had a husband in quite a while.”

He said, “I'm Cliff Moore,” and she said, “I know, from the High,” and he said yeah.

She said, “Your concert's not till the day after tomorrow.”

“They always bring us in early to the casino gigs,” he said. “Hoping we lose what they're paying us at the tables.”

“Do you?”

“The roadies do, some of the guys. It's not my favourite thing about a casino.”

She said, no? “What's your favourite thing?”

He thought about saying, at this particular casino it's taking back two million bucks our old manager ripped us off, and realized he was going along with Barry's plan without even thinking about it, now wondering how much of it was a set-up. Shit.

He said, “There's usually some nice scenery.”

She said, “Oh my God, would a line like that really work?”

“Depends on how much you've had to drink.”

“I haven't had that much.”

“Well, that's good, we can still have some fun.”

She said, “We can?”

After talking on the phone through dinner, Felix said, I have to see someone but it was great to meet you, Ritchie, “Rock this joint, all right?” and Angie said, “Always a pleasure,” and he was gone.

Angie took Ritchie for a walk along the cobblestone path behind the casino, heading down to the lake, telling him that they built all this stuff to show off how beautiful the place was and no one ever leaves the casino.

Ritchie said, “You're the only one who comes here,” and Angie said, no, “This is the first time I've ever been down here.”

Looking out over the moonlight on the lake, surrounded by pine trees growing out of rocks. Ritchie was thinking the place was good for her, and he told her he liked it, “The whole set-up.”

She said, “The casino,” and Ritchie said the whole thing, being out of the city, her running the Showroom, everything and she said, “Frank runs the Showroom.”

Ritchie said, “Sure he does,” and she looked at him and he looked back.

Then she shook her head, shook out whatever she was really thinking, and said, “It saved my life.”

“Yeah?”

He looked into her eyes, waiting. Shit, he'd been waiting a long time to look Angie in the eyes like this and he didn't even realize it. She was getting to him a lot more than he thought she would.

“Yeah, well, you know, I don't want to be overdramatic or anything, but you go through rehab a few times and it can feel like forever.”

“Sure.”

She said, shit, “You make me feel like an idiot.”

“I do?”

She laughed and said, “Fuck you, Ritchie,” and he laughed, too. Then she said, “You know, you feel like one more time going in, one more rehab, you just won't be able to do it.”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him and she said, “So, you don't have a girlfriend these days,” and Ritchie said, no, “A few one-night stands, but it's been a few years,” and for the first time since he'd been at Huron Woods he thought about Emma, supposed to be the road manager but no one had seen her since Montreal, and now he was hoping she didn't show up here.

Then Angie took his hand and held it and they walked along the sandy edge of the lake, a little man-made beach about six feet wide. Like the teenagers on a date they never were.

She said she was working for Frank in Niagara Falls and it was getting bad, mostly drinking, but she still did a little coke. “What a cliché, eh?” Ritchie didn't say anything, he just squeezed her hand, and she said, “'Course it wouldn't be a cliché if it didn't happen all the time, right?”

“Right.”

“And since it happens all the time, you never think it'll be you — you're always under control.”

“I've seen it,” Ritchie said.

“I guess you have, all those years on the road.”

He wondered where they all went, all those years on the road. He was feeling like he'd just seen her at the Horseshoe yesterday, her acid-wash denim miniskirt, and leg warmers, frizzed-out dyed blond hair, big black bracelets.

Then she said, “The thing is, you have to stop trying to change. You have to accept who you are and just make adjustments.”

Ritchie said, “People don't change,” and she stopped, held his hand, pulled him around so he was facing her, and she said, “No, they don't, do they?”

“Think they do, I guess, but they don't.” She was looking right at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, and maybe that was different, maybe that was a change. Or an adjustment. He wasn't sure. He said, “All those assholes I knew thinking if they just had a hit song it would change everything, it would make everything great, just one hit, you know?”

And she was nodding at him, listening, taking him seriously.

He said, “But then we had a big hit and they were still assholes,” and she laughed.

She started walking again, back towards the casino, but then down another path through some trees with lanterns on them.

She said, “It's like we've always been waiting for the next, whatever, you know, the next stage of our lives, the grown-up stage,” and he said, “Or avoiding it,” and she said, no.

She said, “I might have agreed with you a long time ago, Ritchie, the eternal teenager, but I don't think so.”

“Are you saying I've grown up?”

She said, “Maybe I finally did. Maybe you already were when we met and I'm only just seeing it now.”

“Well don't spread it around — I've got a rep.”

She stopped and looked at him again, said, “Yeah, you do, and you use it to keep people off guard.”

“I do?”

“Keep them at a distance.”

“Yeah?”

“Like right now.”

“I'm just not sure how to handle this, Angie. I don't know what it is.”

“I don't either, but I like it.”

She started walking again, and they came out of the trees to the edge of a parking lot.

Ritchie said, “So, you going to be the Entertainment Director?”

“You think Frank's going to get himself killed?”

“Has to happen eventually.”

“Yeah, he's somebody that's never changed.”

“You going to miss him?”

She laughed and said, he isn't gone yet. Then she said, yeah, I will. She said, “When he got the job here he said he'd bring me along but I had to do rehab one more time. He kept the job for me. He waited.”

“He likes having you around; he can feel like a hero.”

She looked at him and said, “You know a lot about people.”

“I know a lot about people like Frank. I wrote a few songs about people like that.”

“How come you never wrote a song about me?”

He said, “Every love song I ever wrote was for you, Angie,” and right away wished he hadn't. Maybe it was okay, she looked surprised but not pissed off. He said, but you know, “The name was taken.”

She kissed him.

He hugged her, pulled her close, and kissed her back.

When she finally pulled away a little, he looked her in the eyes and then she said, “I'm going to go home now,” and he said okay and let go of her a little, and she pulled out of his embrace and walked into the parking lot. She stopped at a new Toyota and looked back at him. He hadn't moved a muscle, and she waved before she got in and drove away.

And he was thinking, what the fuck just happened?

He stood there for a while thinking this could really be something, some kind of turning point, some big change. This could be a choice right here, there was something going on with Angie for sure, and he'd have to make some decision, make some choices — he couldn't just act like nothing happened. Made him think of that line, Geddy screaming it out. Shit, Rush, those guys still getting along, still having fun. Shit, playing high schools from St. Catharines to Oshawa, the High and Rush in the '70s.

That line, something about if you choose not to decide you've still made a choice.

Ritchie laughed, thinking only fucking Neil Peart could make a rock'n'roll lyric out of that and only Gary Lee Weinrib could sing shit like that and get twenty thousand people singing along.

But that was it right there: do nothing and you know what happens, you go back to your old life and this door closes forever. Do something, take a chance, drop your guard, open up and . . .

Shit.

Okay, Ritchie shook his head and was thinking, that's enough of that, when he saw two guys in the parking lot, standing close together at the back of a car, trunk open, and then they shoved each other and one guy stepped back and there was a flash and a pop and the other guy fell over.

Then a couple more pops and the guy still standing turned and walked away.

Ritchie started after him, took about two steps, saw him get into a car and drive away.

The parking lot was silent, not a fucking sound. It was like when they hit the break in “Hello, Tonight,” the music stopped and Cliff standing there onstage waiting for the whole place to be completely quiet before coming in, the only thing Ritchie ever felt was Dale twitching like a speed freak behind the drums, not making a sound almost killing him.

And then a woman screamed — when they were onstage and now in the parking lot. This woman came out of an
RV
walking towards the guy who'd been shot. She screamed and a man came out of the
RV
on the phone, and a couple minutes later the casino security guys were there and a crowd was starting and Ritchie figured he should go over, tell them what he saw.

Shit, not going to get any sleep tonight.

At least it would give him something to do instead of thinking about him and Angie, what might happen there.

• • •

Gayle didn't mind it on her stomach. She piled up the pillows and moved her ass up and down in time with Danny. They'd been doing it together so long they got into a rhythm right away, him holding onto her hips and driving hard, but now that was the problem, Danny finishing too soon and flopping onto his side of the bed.

Gayle said, “I'm not really done here,” and he said, “That's why God gave you fingers, honey.”

Right. She rolled over and pulled all the pillows back up, tried to get comfortable, rolled over to her other side, and then turned over onto her back, looking at the ceiling.

Danny snoring already.

That was the thing that first attracted her to him. Not that he finished too soon — hell, when he was twenty-five he could get behind her like that and drive her home five or six times before he was done. No, what Gayle liked was that Danny wasn't some insecure, needy, whiny boy-man like the jerks at the club she danced for years ago, down there going at her like she was an ice cream and then needing to be told over and over how great they were at it. All that talking about what she wanted and her needs and she just wanted to say, maybe you could shut up and fuck me.

And that's what Danny did.

Now, thinking of the first time she saw him, Gayle onstage at Hanrahan's in Hamilton, a few blocks from where she was born. She wasn't a newbie — she'd been stripping for a few years by then, doing the northern Ontario circuit, not a feature dancer, but she was good.

Danny and the boys coming into the club, Nugs and O.J. and Spaz, and it was like Gayle was the kid. These guys, these men, they were so confident, they didn't gawk at the dancers, they didn't try and act all cool, they were guys and they treated the women like coworkers, 'cause they were. These guys sure weren't intimidated by good-looking naked women, and they never acted like they wanted to save you, take you away from all this. They liked all this and she liked it, too, she was always at home in peeler bars, got along with the chicks and never got pulled into their high school dramas.

Danny and the boys never had that much drama: they always took care of business and business was good. So good Danny never seemed to worry about it anymore.

And all Gayle did these days was worry about it. This deal with the casino was pretty much hers all the way — she was the one up at Huron Woods with the guy hitting on her, telling her he ran the place, and she said, oh yeah? Turned out Frank didn't really run the place, he just wanted to, and Gayle said she might be able to help him out.

Another source to launder the money they were making in T.O., take over the loan sharking and the dope business and the girls, move in ten, twelve a night, maybe not all at the casino hotel but there was the Adderly just down the highway — hell, they might even buy the place. Gayle might buy it — she was running all the legit businesses, all the fronts. Everything in her name.

Then she was thinking, shit, maybe I should be more worried about hiding the money, shielding the money like the accountant said, like Danny did when he gave it to me.

Danny said, “What's the matter?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“You're making so much noise.”

She said, “Sorry, can't sleep.”

Then Danny said, “I'm thinking about getting my bike out,” and Gayle said, oh yeah?

“Yeah.” He was awake then, rolling onto his back, eyes wide open. “I haven't been on the bike in years.”

“You went on that ride through Quebec last year, when Nugs took over president.” As she was saying it she was thinking how Nugs took over the only way you could, taking out the other president, Richard from Montreal.

“That wasn't a ride, that was a fucking show. Hangaround rode to Montreal; I picked up the bike there. I'm talking about a real ride, you and me, maybe we go to California.”

She was glad it was dark in the room, so he wouldn't see the look on her face. She said, “California?” thinking, shit, Danny, after all these years we finally hit the big time, finally get it together, we're talking big, big money here, and you want to ride off into the sunset?

“Down to Mexico. Shit, we could go right through to Costa Rica, Panama, maybe all the way to Colombia. We've got friends in Colombia.”

“Business associates,” she said, thinking, shit, business, remember that? What we do?

“Or we could take the east coast, go through Maine, take that Appalachian Trail. That'd be a great ride.”

She didn't say anything then, just rolled her eyes in the dark and thought, okay, well, I'm not coming this far for nothing, not to ride off on the back of a motorcycle like I'm twenty-one. It was cool then, sure, but she'd grown. That's what she was thinking — she'd grown and maybe Danny hadn't. He just wasn't that interested in the new business and now he was talking about taking off for months, shit, years.

No, he could go if he wanted to, or if he was going to be an asshole about it, presidents weren't the only ones retired by force.

She wasn't getting this close and then just walking away. Shit, it was pretty much her business now, anyway, and she was thinking maybe she'd just say that to Danny, just say, go if you want.